Foreign Affairs Council

According to a press release posted on the EU External Action Service website, the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy will travel to the Western Balkans April-19, and will visit "Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia."

Minister-delegate for European Affairs Victor Negrescu on Tuesday met participants in a pilot programme called "Volunteers of the Romanian Presidency at the EU Council," to be conducted April-June 2018 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE).

Foreign Affairs Minister Teodor Melescanu participated on Monday in Brussels in the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) meeting, context in which the head of the Romanian diplomacy pleaded for the EU to maintain its attention and support, so that the process of implementing the Association Agreement / the Free Trade Agreement continue in the relationship with Ukraine.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Teodor Melescanu on Monday chaired the meeting of the Group for European Action of the Republic of Moldova (GAERM), informed MAE in a press release.

The meeting was organized in Brussels on the sidelines of the Foreign Affairs Council, where the Moldovan Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Tudor Ulianovschi was the main guest.

Romania's Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu on Monday attended a working lunch with the ambassadors of EU member states accredited in Bucharest, organised by the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria in Romania amidst the ongoing Bulgarian presidency of the EU Council, discussing, among other things, the importance of the post-Brexit European summit to be hosted by the city of Sibiu.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ekaterina Zaharieva will take part in the Foreign Affairs Council, which will be held in Brussels.

The meeting will begin today with a working breakfast with the President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), the main topic of which will be the creation of a Development Bank as a subordinate structure within the EIB.

The renaming of Skopje’s airport from “Alexander the Great” to “Kiro Gligorov” (former Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia -FYROM- president) proposed diplomats in the country, an idea that seems to be accepted by Prime Minister Zoran Zaev despite the strong objections expressed by Nikola Gruevski’s main opposition party VMRO-DPMNE.

Bulgaria, Greece and Romania will take concrete measures to enhance their defence cooperation.

This was agreed at a meeting of the defence ministers of the three Balkan member states of the EU, which took place in Luxembourg on Monday.

Bulgaria's Defence Minister Nikolay Nenchev will call for devising a common EU policy on counteracting the influx of refugees to Europe.

Nenchev will raise the issue at the informal meeting of EU defence ministers, which is scheduled to take place in Luxembourg on Wednesday and Thursday.

National Defence Minister Mircea Dusa on Monday participated in the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council and in the works of the Steering Board of the European Defence Agency, on which occasion he said that, in the current security context, "the cooperation with the North Atlantic Alliance is the development of military capabilities area is very important."